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India forced their way to the first triumph on the Australian tour when they won the second Twenty20 against the home side by eight wickets.

Confident Gautam Gambhir Stirred India to the first Victory in Australia

The much awaited win came after they had lost the Test series 0-4 and the first T20, couple of days back.
Australian innings was folded back two balls before the scheduled 20 overs for 131 runs and India achieved the target by thrashing 135 runs in 19.4 overs.

Ravindra Jadeja was honoured with ’Player of the match’ award which was earned by his calculated bowling and excellent fielding.

The second and final T20 was played at Melbourne Cricket Ground, on February 3rd, 2012.
Earlier George Bailey won the toss, elected to bat on a wicket which looked helpful for the stroke makers and commented, “Beautiful wicket, looks hard, full of runs.”

The decision seemed productive for first couple of overs as the home side plundered 18 runs but lost the wicket of their hard hitting batsman David Warner on the second ball of the third over for eight runs off Praveen Kumar. He srtuck back again three balls later when Shaun Marsh also departed without opening his account.

The opener Aaron Finch stood firm on one end and took the score to 49 with David Hussey before the earlier was unluckily run out at 36 runs off 23 balls with six fours.

David Hussy and Matthew Wade flourished the innings later by having a partnership of 39 runs. Hussy lost his wicket for 24 runs as the wickets started sliding from the other end. Wade was run out for 32 runs as the lower order vanished quickly and the whole team was bowled out at 131 runs in 19.4 overs.

Kumar and Rahul Sharma were the main wicket takers with two wickets each, Vinay kumar held one and Jadeja got one wicket for 16 runs in three overs.

India started their innings with Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, both of them were in an aggressive mood and smashed 42 runs in the first six overs. Sehwag was unable to continue his assault and was caught by Marsh off Brad Hogg for 23 runs off 16 balls with one six and two fours.

Young Virat Kohli joined in with Gambhir and both continued with the tempo of the game set earlier. They accumulated 12 runs in the ninth over bowled by Hogg which included a four from the blade of each of them. Kohli tried to boost up the run rate but lost his wicket for 31 runs off 24 balls with three fours.

The second wicket was lost at 97 runs when MS Dhoni walked in and gave a solid stand to Gambhir who completed his fifty in the 18th over. Gambhir dispatched the winning boundary on the fourth ball of the nineteenth over when the target was achieved by thrashing 135 runs. Both batsmen remained unbeaten at the end of the day with Gambhir on 56 and Dhoni at 21runs.

Mitchell Marsh and Hogg claimed one wicket each from the home side.
India was successful after a long wait on their recent tour but the victory will be vital before the One Day International tri-series involving Australia and Sri Lanka starting from February 5, 2012.